CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 349 



of its nest being robbed by boys. As many as forty eggs have been 

 taken from this nest in one season ; as fast as the eggs are taken the 

 bird lays another lot and in spite of this persecution returns every 

 spring to its old home. Higher up in the same telegraph post a 

 pair of tree swallows nest annually and succeed in hatching out their 

 brood as the hole is too small for the boys to get their hands into. 

 (W. Raine.) Nests taken at Ottawa are in holes in stubs or broken 

 trees. Eggs five to seven, pure white, laid on a bed of small chips 

 and dust. {G. R. White.) First seen in 1892 at Indian Head, 

 Sask., April 19th; after this they became common and were nesting 

 by May 9th, one shot at this date had its stomach full of ants. First 

 seen in 1894 at Medicine Hat, Sask., on April 12th. After that they 

 became common and could scarcely be distinguished from the form 

 I call the hybrid flicker; both forms were breeding. Later this 

 species was found at Crane lake and very common in the timber at 

 the east end of the Cypress hills. In May, 1895, it was found breed- 

 ing with the hybrid form at Old Wives creek and the eggs of each 

 taken. Both nests were in holes of Acer Negundo. It was also 

 found at Wood mountain and along Frenchman river in the Cypress 

 hills. Common and breeding at Banff, Rocky mountains, in 1891. 

 Met with at Revelstoke in 1890 in company with hybrids and the 

 red-shafted flicker. {Macoun.) A very common summer visitant. 

 Found everywhere. It is plentiful in the Magdalen islands where 

 its former nest-holes are sometimes occupied by the small owls that 

 breed there. Once in the county of Renfrew I found a nest with 

 nine eggs, but six or seven is the usual number. {Rev^ C. J. Young.) 

 Abundant from April to October. Usually the flicker's nest is 

 situated quite a distance from the ground, as one of the bird's names 

 — "high hole" — suggests. But last summer a nest was observed so 

 low that the bottom was on a level with the ground outside the 

 stump in which the nest was made. The nine eggs which this nest 

 contained were also remarkable. One egg was no larger than a 

 sparrow's and contained no yolk, while the other eight varied greatly 

 in shape from spherical to extremely elongate. {H. F. Tufts.) The 

 diameter of the entrance to this nest in trees or stumps is 2 J inches, 

 but sometimes the bird chooses a natural cavity. I found a nest 

 on the 2oth of June, 1897, in a hole on a stump, and another on the 

 8th of July, 1906, in a hole two feet deep on an old fence post. The 

 number of eggs laid is from five to eight and sometimes more. A 

 set of ten eggs I took on the 3rd of June, comprised eight incubated 



